


The Elephant in the Room

by WriterOfFates



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-10
Updated: 2014-12-10
Packaged: 2018-02-28 21:22:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2747579
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WriterOfFates/pseuds/WriterOfFates
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dick keeps finding presents here and there, but who could they be from?</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Elephant in the Room

**Author's Note:**

  * For [myrinas_webbe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/myrinas_webbe/gifts).



> Notes: The time and placement of this is noncanon anything really, it’s set in Blüdhaven but it’s after Dick’s run as Batman, mainly because I love Officer Grayson and I hate that it was taken from Dick and I think Blüdhaven as his city was important. But yeah, basically I think that’s all you really need to know for this. (Also, I stick to the canon that Jay’s favorite color is green.)

Dick threw his gauntlets aside as he climbed through his bedroom window, pulling the shades before fully peeling the Nightwing suit off of his body. He was exhausted. Balancing being Nightwing and being a cop was easier now that Cassandra was basing herself here in Blüdhaven as well but it was still exhausting, especially since he’d chased a perp on foot through three blocks, over fences, through one bar, and up onto the roofs before finally tackling the guy as Officer Grayson and then basically repeating the same thing several hours later in a kevlar suit rather than a badge. He flipped on his bedroom light to try and find some sweat pants to change into and froze. Something was…. off… about his dresser. Everything seemed to be there, nothing missing. No marks in the layer of dust that he never got to cleaning up showing that anything had been moved. And yet something was not the same.

He stared at it for a few moments more before shrugging it off and searching through the drawers for his pants and then yanking them on. Shaking his head, he headed for his bedroom door, starving and ready for an early morning meal of highly sugared cereal. Just as he reached for the door, he realized what was off.

Slowly he turned back to his dresser and reached out, plucking the small blue porcelain elephant from where it had been half hidden by a bottle of cologne.

Dick turned it over and over in his hand, holding it up to his ear in case there was any sound of ticking, even knocking it slightly against the wood of his dresser. “Seems safe…?” Frowning, he reached up to his ear, pressing the comm unit still there, “Hey, Babs, you there?”

“What’s up, Boy Wonder?”

“Was there any breaches of my security system tonight?”

There’s a pause, “Nothing that sets off any red flags? How many times did you come back today?”

“Just once between my shift and patrol and now. Why?”

“Someone with the password turned off the system for about a minute a few hours ago. Don’t know who since you won’t let me get any cameras in there.”

“Hey, I know how you abuse the Grayson Cam. I don’t need you telling Alfred how often I eat cereal again.”

“It’s unhealthy.”

“Tattletale.”

“I bet you’re about to have cereal now.”

“So what if I am?”

She sighed heavily, “It’s your diet. I don’t know how you can do flips and shit on a cereal and pizza diet when I needed to eat like five meals a day to have enough calories for that.”

“Nag nag nag.”

“Oh please.”

“You’re as bad as Alfred.”

“And you’re as bad as Bruce.”

Dick gasps, “You take that back!”

“Nope. Anyhow, are you in danger? Do you think your security was breached?”

“No, someone just left me a present. It was probably Wally or Roy, seems like something they would do.”

“You and your gingers.”

“You’re one of my gingers you know.”

“Don’t lump me in with those two.”

Dick blew a raspberry and headed for the kitchen, the elephant still in his palm. “Well I’m gonna eat and then collapse, so talk to you later.”

“Fine. But anytime you want to discuss reinstating Grayson Cam…”

“In your dreams. Bye Babs.”

“Bye, Dickie.”

The link went dead and Dick pulled the comm out of his ear, setting it on the kitchen counter as he grabbed out the latest cereal he’d bought, a sugary monstrosity with bat-shaped marshmallow pieces.

He pulled up a stool and stared at the elephant as he stuffed his mouth, squinting at it, looking for any clue of which of his friends may have brought it. He went through the list of people with his passcodes.

Donna, Cass, Wally, Roy, Kory, Babs, Tim, Bruce, Damian, Alfred, Vic, Raven, Jason…. Dick briefly entertained the idea of Jay having been in his apartment, just hours ago, in the very room where Dick slept and sometimes had dreams that were very inappropriate to have about someone he’d once considered a precious brother.

He still considered that Jason to be his precious little brother, he would always be that way in Dick’s head and memories, but Jay, the Red Hood, there was something about him that no longer made Dick associate “little brother.”

After everything that had happened, since Jason had come back to Gotham and into their lives, it was hard to look at him the same way. Jay had gone from baby brother, to murderer, to sometimes ally, to weird kind of friend. Dick had gone through a roller coaster of changing feelings in the last few years towards the younger man, but recently he’d been noticing the way that Jason moved more and more. The acrobatic tendencies, the flashiness of being Robin, was still there but it was much more… Jason now. No longer did Jay move as if he was emulating Dick’s Robin days. And it wouldn’t have suited his bulky body to do so now anyhow. His movements were sure and confident and graceful in the way that only a large man could be graceful. He didn’t hulk about the way Bruce did, but he knew how to use his size to his advantage.

Dick tossed his bowl into the sink and headed back to his bedroom, placing the elephant back onto the dresser where he’d found it before collapsing onto this bed.

“Ugh… gotta stop thinking about him…” Dick murmured to himself as he closed his eyes. “Not like he was the one to bring it to me…”

 

* * *

 

Each day for the next week, Dick came home to find a new figurine somewhere in his apartment. Another porcelain figure to match the first, this one green but with the same patterning on it: a little plastic family of them in a line, holding each other’s tails with their trunks in his cereal cupboard: a rubber one sitting on the edge of his bathtub: a few that looked like they were from a box of Rose Red Tea placed here and there. Dick began looking forward to returning to his apartment each night to see what new elephant he would find.

He toyed with the idea of putting up cameras to catch his home invader, but shook that idea off soon. He liked the mystery of it.

Finally, one night when he returned home, instead of a figurine, he found a little framed picture, looking like it had been cut from a National Geographic magazine or something, of two elephants standing together, their trunks intertwined in the shape of a heart. Dick’s heart skipped a beat and he wondered for what seemed like the thousandth time that week who could be leaving him the little presents. What they meant. Any of his friends knew how much he loved elephants and even this picture could be a symbol of platonic love from any of them. His mind wandered again to Jason and wondered what kind of love he would mean if the gift had been from him. Platonic? Familial? Something else entirely?

Dick shook his head violently and set the picture on his bedside table. He was getting ahead of himself and taking all this too far. He’d set up the camera Babs had sent him in the morning, see for himself who it was.

 

* * *

 

A week had passed since he had set up the camera and a week had since the picture had been placed on his pillow with no sign of any new elephants in Dick’s apartment.

Dick tried not to feel saddened by that and after the third day, he had taken down the camera, hoping that the little gifts would continue, but no luck.

He sat on one of Blüdhaven’s roofs, legs dangling off the edge and just staring off over the smoke covered skyline. Black Bat and Red Robin were off chasing each other somewhere and Dick smiled to hear their laughter over the comms. And off in another city, Bruce and Damian were working together as Batman and Robin--Dick tried not to feel a twinge of jealousy when he recalled the loss of the young boy as his partner. It was… nice to have someone by his side at almost all times, in his personal life and in his work life. He enjoyed working with Gannon Malloy, he was a great cop and a great guy, but he missed having someone to race the roofs with.

Dick heard a muffled shout somewhere nearby and got to his feet, listening carefully. Hearing a small skirmish, he began moving towards the sound, his own feet making no noise.

As he ran, he saw a young woman who looked like she was dressed for a night out on the town run sobbing out of an alleyway. He shot out a line and swung across the road, landing with a soft thud on a roof, then flipping down onto a fire escape to take stock of the scene below him.

He froze in shock as he watched a man in a leather jacket and a red helmet crouch over a barely conscious man. He carefully and quietly crept down the ladder to strain to hear what Red Hood was saying to the man.

“Dare touch a girl who was saying no again and you’re gonna get worse than a concussion and some jail time. I’m thinking broken fingers next time. And trust me, I will enjoy each and every snap of a bone. Third time? It’ll be broken equipment. And you know exactly what kind of equipment I’m talking about. You really don’t want to test me. Got it?” The man managed to groggily nod. “Good.” Jay smacked the butt of his gun down on the man’s temple and he crumpled.

Dick kept creeping closer and closer, watching as Jason pulled a marker out of his pocket and began drawing on the would-be-rapist’s face.

“I wonder if he’ll appreciate this…”

“Who will appreciate what?” Dick asked as he dropped down the last few feet from the fire escape to the ground behind Jay. Jason let out a shriek and his hand jerked. “Whoa, jumpy?”

He leapt to his feet and spun around, standing between the man on the ground and Dick. “No! Nope not jumpy at all! Imagine seeing you here!” Jason let out a laugh that sounded nervous even muffled as it was by the mask.

Dick leaned to the side, trying to see around the larger man. “Whatcha drawing?”

“Nothing.”

“Is that a blue permanent marker?”

“No.” Jason tucked the marker into his pocket quickly.

Dick lifted his eyebrows and Jay looked away. “Oooookay.” Dick shifted onto the balls of his feet and lunged towards Jason, who braced for the tackle, but Dick feinted to the side at the last moment, darting around to look at the man.

His breath left him in a woosh.

“Is that… an elephant…?” He glanced up at Jason, cursing the helmet blocking his facial features.

Jay shoved his hands in his pockets. “So what if it is?”

Suddenly, Dick found it hard to breathe. “It… it was you… And now… were you leaving this guy as a… present for me…? Hey wait!” Dick called out as Jason turned on his heel and began striding away. He paused for a moment to make sure Jay had tied the criminal up then trotted after the other man, grabbing his arm as he reached him. “Hood… Hood wait… Jay… please…”

“What?” Jason snapped, but stopped.

“Can I… see your face right now…?” He didn’t respond, just looked away. “Please?”

There was a sigh but Jay reached up and undid the helmet, pulling it away slowly and revealing slightly pink cheeks.

Dick beamed and leaned in, kissing Jay’s cheek, amused as the color deepened to one that nearly matched the domino mask the other vigilante wore under his helmet. “Thank you. I loved them. What were they for though?”

“You… you don’t understand yet?”

“Understand what?”

“They were presents.”

“I got that much.”

“For you.”

“Yes. But why?”

“Because… If you don’t get it it doesn’t matter…” Jason looked away. “See you around, Dick-face.” He turned and raced off.

“Hey! Wait!” Dick took a step to chase after him when he heard the trussed up man groan. In the moment that Dick paused and looked back, Jason was gone, lost to the tangle of Blüdhaven’s streets.

 

* * *

 

After turning the man over to the cops, Dick searched the city the whole night, not giving up until the sun was well over the horizon. When he finally trudged his way back to his apartment and collapsed on his bed, costume barely pulled off, he passed out almost immediately, his sleep filled with confusing dreams that he only half remembered when he woke.

Running his hand through his hair, he looked at himself in the mirror as he got ready for his shift at the precinct, not looking forward to the paperwork that faced him.

“God I look like shit…” He tugged at one of the bags under his eye and gave a heavy sigh, knowing just how much shit Amy would give him for not taking better care of himself when she saw him.

Shaking his head, he left his apartment, the bus ride to the precinct passing in a blur. He dragged himself into the hustle and bustle of the bullpen, weaving his way towards his desk.

Gannon looked up from his coffee and papers, “Someone’s late--whoa, what happened to you? You look like you got dragged to hell and back.”

“Gee thanks, buddy,” Dick said flatly. He collapsed into his chair and mentally prepared himself for reams of paper, pulling one of his desk drawers open. He gasped and froze, staring down into it.

“Dick? What’s wrong?”

“Did you see anyone come near my desk today?”

“I only got here a little before you. Why?”

Dick reached into the drawer and pulled out a stuffed elephant, made from a patchwork of green and blue fabrics. “It looks… handmade…”

“It’s… cute?”

“It’s shaped just like my favorite stuffed animal from when I was a kid…” Hanging from a green ribbon around it’s neck was a little folded note. Dick pulled it free and opened it up.

 

"Elephants and I have two things in common:

1\. We never forget.

2\. We tend to love you.

J.”

 

“Who’s it from?”

Dick smiled and held the plushie close. “Someone very important…”


End file.
